1
What Was a Map? The Lexicographers Reply
J. H. ANDREWS
Chepstow / Wales / UK
Abstract Definitions of the word “map” are often discussed in a philosophical spirit, but they have not been
previously used as a way of throwing light on cartographic
history. In this study, a sample of more than three hundred such definitions has been collected from dictionaries, encyclopedias, geographical texts, and other writings
of various dates from the mid-seventeenth century to the
present day. The results clearly deserve statistical and historical analysis, and several examples of such analysis are
offered for consideration. The most common lexicographical approach is to treat maps as representations of
the surface of the earth, but for many writers this simple
formula has been too general and too crude. Of the alternative definitions, few seem conformable to common usage. Instead, they reflect changing intellectual fashions
among geographers and, in more recent times, cartographers. In these cases where greater lexicographical refinement is attempted, a number of motifs can be seen to
emerge, those chosen for discussion being, in historical
order, scientific, popular, professional, and philosophical.
T
HIS paper is based on 321 definitions of the word
“map” drawn from dictionaries, glossaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, monographs, and learned
journals of the period 1649–1996.1 The sample is neither
random nor structured, but incorporates whatever biases
must affect a researcher with limited time and money
who makes occasional use of libraries and bookshops
within the British Isles. No type of source has been deliberately excluded: the author’s purpose is not to find the
best definitions but simply to suggest how various ways of
thinking about maps may have impinged upon the reading public. Members of the cartographic and academic
professions have been allowed no more authority than
the man or woman in the street, and in furtherance of
J. H. Andrews was formerly associate professor in the Department of Geography at Trinity College, Dublin. He wishes to thank Richard Haworth
for supplying a number of definitions, Paul Ferguson for making available
important e-mail correspondence on the word “map,” and Krystina
Szykula for tracing the article referred to in note 1. Special thanks are also
due to Edward H. Dahl for several kinds of help and encouragement.
CARTOGRAPHICA, VOLUME 33, # 4, WINTER, 1996
this non-discriminatory principle the word “lexicographer” will be applied to anyone who frames a definition,
regardless of his or her occupational status. The only
ground for disqualification is that to reduce the risk of arithmetical error, and to avoid tedium, works repeating
the same definition in successive editions have not been
counted more than once. There is no room to print more
than a few extracts from the complete list;2 instead, attention will be concentrated on some of the most common
elements in map-lexicography, each term being introduced by a bracketed reference to the number of its occurrences and the dates of its earliest and latest recorded
use.3
Until recently, lexicographers have hardly ever given
reasons for differing from their predecessors, and it
seems unlikely that their thought processes can be much
illuminated by research in the archives of publishing
houses, universities, or individual authors. To understand the ebb and flow of fashion in this field would
therefore require wider contextual knowledge and finer
historical judgement than the average map specialist has
at his or her command. It is at least conceivable, however,
though perhaps not very likely, that the intrinsic weaknesses of a definition may have something to do with its
demise and replacement, and in recognition of this possibility the statistical facts will be interspersed with a
number of explanatory suggestions, all inevitably hypothetical and some no doubt controversial.
A Lexicographical Base Level
One group of map definitions is so much larger than any
others that it can serve as a standard for the assessment
of alternative versions. In words that vary considerably
but always seem to bear much the same meaning, the
map has been equated by dozens of writers with a representation (205: 1649–1996) in a plane (150: 1649–1996)
of all or part of the earth’s surface (144: 1733–1995).4
This has remained a popular opinion from the seventeenth to the late twentieth century, though as Table 2
shows it has remained more prevalent in general dictionaries and encyclopedias than among less conservatively
minded authors. The main lesson to be drawn from it is
that thinking about maps, as distinct from making maps,
2
JOHN ANDREWS
General
dictionaries and
encyclopedias
Dates
Other
writings
Total
1720 or earlier
5
2
7
1721–1740
4
1
5
1741–1760
4
–
4
1761–1780
4
4
8
1781–1800
5
–
5
1801–1820
4
1
5
1821–1840
7
3
10
1841–1860
8
1
9
1861–1880
5
4
9
1881–1900
6
3
9
1901–1920
5
11
16
1921–1940
20
14
34
1941–1960
14
19
33
1961–1980
17
44
61
1981or later
30
76
106
Table 1
Definitions of the word “map” classified by origin and period
Dates
Dictionaries
and
encyclopedias
Other works
Total
1649–1940
86
70
80
1941–1996
82
24
42
1649–1996
84
35
56
Table 2 “Standard” definitions as a percentage of all definitions
has seldom been considered worthy of the highest intellectual rigour.
The most interesting constituents in definitions of the
standard type are the words “representation” and “surface.” “Representation” belongs to a group of terms that
also includes “picture” (42: 1755–1992), “delineation”
(38: 1755–1993), “drawing” (22: 1870–1995), “projection” (14: 1708–1835),5 “description” (13: 1649–1989),
“image” (10: 1977–95), “figure” (6: 1730–1823), “model”
(5: 1922–93), “expression” (5: 1933–95), “diagram” (3:
1978–80), “analogue” (2: 1980–82), “resemblance” (1:
1717), “reproduction” (1: 1919), “miniature” (1: 1936),
“mimicking” (1: 1994), “matrix” (1: 1995) and “transcript” (1: 1995). It will be noted that the idea of strict
verisimilitude, as in “reproduction” and perhaps “miniature,” is comparatively rare in this vocabulary, and that
“mirror,” strongly castigated in recent map-philosophical
writing, does not occur even once.6 But most of these
words involve some idea of spatial correspondence, and
we may note in passing that both “delineation” and
“drawing” seem to hold the further suggestion that a
map consists of dots and lines rather than patches of colour.7
Representation is a more complex idea than reproduction. (For instance, it may be taken to include some
degree of misrepresentation, though in our sample this
proviso is never made explicit.) All its meanings allow the
representative to act in certain circumstances as a substitute for the object represented: where they differ is in the
weight given to graphic or pictorial communication.
Thus for the art critic representationalism suggests a close
resemblance between an image and its referent. In other
forms of graphic expression there need be little or no
such resemblance: the real-life railway station represented
on a map by a red circle may itself be of any colour. At
least the circle in this case is (loosely speaking) in the
same place as its referent, but when an ambassador represents his country on a state occasion, no one seeing a picture of him thus engaged would suppose that both he
and his country exist in the same room. Perhaps it is this
versatility that has made the word “representation” so
popular in map definitions.8 Twentieth-century lexicographers, especially, may be inclined to congratulate
themselves on their impartiality about the relation of pictorial to non-pictorial elements in map-making, secure in
the belief that both language and pictures are in some
way representational. Unfortunately, a fourth use of this
word carries a meaning that is purely verbal, as in (to
borrow an example from a famous dictionary) “society is
not what Balzac represents it to be.” The earth’s surface,
like society, might be “represented” in Balzacian prose
that could never be mistaken for a map.
It follows that no definition in which a map “represents,” without qualification, can be wholly satisfactory.
In recent times the definition-maker’s favourite qualifying adjective for map-representation has been “graphic”
(37: 1943–95). This term presents its own problems.
Nowadays it is usually taken to exclude writing, as when
“graphics” are opposed to script, but to judge from words
like “autograph” and “graphology” it might also be interpreted in an opposite sense. In fact most people would
see both words and images as essential to a map (even if
the words are only spoken), though only three of our examples (1918–77) refer explicitly to verbal language.
The earth’s surface might be defined (again loosely
speaking) as whatever breaks the fall of an object
dropped from a considerable height. But a fly on a vertical window pane, if it could talk, would probably not describe itself as having left the earth’s surface, and few
people seem to regard the drawing of elevations as part
of cartography.9 More generally, “representation of the
WHAT WAS A MAP? THE LEXICOGRAPHERS REPLY
earth’s surface” allows every specimen of landscape art to
count as a map, whatever the observer’s angle of vision,
and this too is obviously in conflict with normal usage.
Cezanne and Van Gogh were not cartographers.
Considerations of verticality aside, another criticism
of “surface” is that it suggests a single object, whereas a
map may represent a number of different objects —
some of them immaterial, such as voting patterns or religious beliefs. One response is to reduce the semantic importance of the terrestrial surface by allowing mappable
phenomena to detach themselves from it. Examples of
this approach are “a two-dimensional graphic image
which shows the location of things in space, that is in relationship to the earth’s surface”10 and “a representation
normally to scale and on a flat medium of a selection of
material or abstract features on, or in relation to, the surface of the earth or of a celestial body” (see Appendix).
Here the meaning of “surface” may have shifted from a
visible and tangible continuum towards a purely conceptual form perhaps synonymous with “geoid.” The next
logical step is for “surface” to disappear altogether and
for features to be represented simply “in their lateral disposition.”11 The same idea can be found in a charming
definition of 1877: “[a showing of] the shapes and positions of the features of the earth, not as they rise before
the eye in all the beauties of the sun and air, and in their
vertical, upright forms, but as they are stretched out horizontally at one’s feet.”12 The last-mentioned examples
must serve as a warning against expectations of chronological tidiness in the grouping of map definitions. Each
of the following sections refers to a particular time-span
but with a considerable overlap; in fact, roughly speaking, each period encloses the next period.
The Scientific Map
“Sketch maps are what you usually think about when you
hear the word ‘map.’”13 This dictum from the 1970s is
the exact opposite of the truth as recorded two or three
hundred years earlier. In our sample, the seventeenthand eighteenth-century perception of maps is essentially
scientific, their closest links being with mathematics, navigation, astronomy, and also with geography as opposed
to topography. Today, the inferiority of maps to globes
may survive as a routine ploy in the teaching of map projections. In the seventeenth century the comparison was
taken more seriously. John Locke recommended that geographical education should begin by pointing out countries on the globe. When a pupil “has the natural parts of
the globe well fixed in his memory,” he should proceed
through elementary arithmetic to the basic concepts of
mathematical geography “and by them be made to understand the use of maps,” returning finally with improved comprehension to the globe.14 Isaac Newton
appears to have held the same opinion.15
Locke’s comment explains the emphasis on the terrestrial sphere in the early lexicography of maps. The first
item in our list actually begins by defining a globe, with
3
maps added many pages later almost as an afterthought:
The terrestrial or earthly globe is an artificial representation of
the earth and water under that form and figure of roundness
which they are supposed to have, describing the situation, and
measuring the compass of the whole frame, and describing the
situation and measuring the distances of all the parts …. As the
earth and water are wholly represented upon the globe, so the
whole, or any part of either may be described in plano, or upon
a plane surface in a map or sea-chart.16
Our second definition (1689) is simply “a schedule containing a description of the world, &c.”17 The next two
examples take a similarly global view before mentioning
individual countries: “a representation of the whole
globe of the earth, or of some particular country upon a
plan, or plain superficies”;18 “a representation of the
globe of the earth, or of some of its parts upon a plan, or
plain superficies.”19 It is not until the fifteenth entry, in
1755, that any geographical unit other than the whole
earth is placed first. It is also notable that where we find
references to “parts, kingdoms, regions or countries” as
subjects for cartography at this period the territories in
question are nearly always large enough to be found on a
normal-sized globe. The same message appears in the examples given by those early lexicographers who chose to
flesh out their definitions with inessential detail: among
possible constituents of a map they mention rivers (26:
1708–1993), hills and mountains (24: 1708–1992),
oceans and seas (22: 1721–1993), cities and towns (19:
1708–1993), woods (4: 1708–1956) and islands (3: 1721–
30) but until the twentieth century never streets, fields,
or individual buildings.20
Similar considerations explain the emphasis placed
on the flat drawing surface as a way of distinguishing map
from globe. (“Flat” may be taken to include the capacity
for being unrolled or unfolded, but apparently no one
has tried to classify the curved regional maps, supposedly
cut out of very large-scale globes, that have sometimes
been recommended for educational use.)21 To subsume
spherical representation under the general concept of
“map,” as favoured by Arthur Robinson and Barbara
Petchenik, would probably have been regarded in
Locke’s time as an insult to globes.22 The flatness still required by many modern definitions may be a heritage
from these early sphere-fixated years of geo-lexicography.
In 1717 John Green defined a map as a “resemblance
of the heavens or the earth.”23 As it happens, the sky
makes no further appearance in our sample until 1829
(it is prominent enough afterwards) though star maps
had been familiar in Europe since the sixteenth century.24 There is nothing uncartographic about such maps.
They are plane representations of a sphere or part of a
sphere that happens to be viewed from the inside; indeed they are in one respect more map-like than terrestrial cartography, because in star maps the observer’s
4
JOHN ANDREWS
view is for practical purposes always orthogonal to the
surface of the sphere.25 At any rate, most eighteenth-century definitions of “map” are dominated by concepts dependent for their applicability upon the sun and stars.
An example is Nathan Bailey’s “a general map is a description of the whole earth, with the several countries,
islands, seas, rivers etc. therein contained, and also the
circles of the globe.”26 The circles of the globe are of course
lines of latitude and/or longitude (14: 1755–1906), concepts explicitly and influentially imported into English
lexicography by Samuel Johnson.27
Another common expression of geometric ideals at
this early period is the claim that maps show the earth’s
surface “according to the rules of perspective” (8: 1733–
1823). This seems to mean that every map must be based
on a definite projection, though the word “perspective”
would today be taken to exclude those projections that
are usually called conventional because they cannot be
generated by the methods of projective geometry. Of
course, some conventional projections, such as Mercator’s, had been invented before the earliest date in our
sample. Perhaps the proliferation of such systems from
the late eighteenth century onwards helped to lower the
“merit-bar” between two- and three-dimensional representations of the earth, with globes losing their place in
geographical education and literature as flat maps became more mathematically versatile. However, this may
be giving projections too much credit. Equally convincing objections to the globe in the context of mass education have been its cost, bulk, and fragility. It is certainly
remarkable how seldom globes are mentioned in the
pedagogic literature of the late Victorian era,28 which
was also a time when lexicographers began to show proportionately less interest in distinguishing them from
maps.
A particular legacy from the eighteenth century has
been the insistence on projection in the modern sense
(18: 1889–1992) as well as scale (48: 1779–1993) in two
of the most famous word-hoards of recent times, the Oxford and Webster dictionaries. Elsewhere it admittedly
remained common for the more difficult concept of projection to be left out, as for instance when Charles Cotter
defined a map as simply “a representation of the earth’s
surface on a reduced scale.”29 Of course, in any terrestrial map of a large area the exact scale must vary from
place to place, and definitions that ignore this fact can be
legitimized only by redefining “scale” to include the pattern of scale differences entailed by a certain projection.
As a mathematical geographer, Cotter was obviously
aware of this; with other authors a pluralistic interpretation of scale seems less convincing, and their neglect of
projections is more probably due either to forgetfulness
or to a special concern for “popular” maps as defined below.
The astro-mathematical bias of early map definitions
can be explained in various ways. One influence on global preoccupations may have been an unconscious folk-
memory of the word “mappemonde” from which “map”
had taken its origin in the sixteenth century. Also relevant, perhaps, was the tendency of pioneer English dictionary editors to concentrate on “hard words” and,
perhaps on this account, to favour unnecessarily technical meanings for expressions that might better have been
treated as simple. It would be surprising if these considerations remained important much later than the time of
Samuel Johnson, but the general bookishness of definition-makers may have continued to hold sway in the
nineteenth century and to some extent afterwards. Bookishness here has a strictly physical sense: it means that
throughout this early phase the public’s perception of a
map was governed by the kind of academically correct
“geographical” presentation familiar in printed atlases
rather than the specialized ad hoc material more characteristic of single-sheet cartography.
The Popular Map
A new trend in nineteenth-century cartography was the
desire to simplify the process of map-reading for those
(typically soldiers and children) whose geographical education had been either incomplete or ineffective. Another change was an enormous increase in the public’s
consumption of large-scale maps with limited territorial
coverage, including town plans, estate maps, and engineering surveys, all of them easily comprehensible without reference to the earth’s sphericity.30 The component
sheets of a national topographical series may come under the same heading of user-friendliness — to judge
from the omission of latitude and longitude in certain
small-scale British Ordnance Survey maps aimed at a
popular market.31 The growing use of stiff covers for
folded map sheets at the end of the nineteenth century
must have exercised a strong influence here, comparable
with the earlier effect of the atlas in channelling eighteenth-century notions of a typical map.
Meanwhile there had been some radical changes in
the philosophy of geographical education. Jean Jacques
Rousseau’s challenge to Locke’s ideas was published as
early as 1780: “You wish to teach this child geography
and you provide him with globes, spheres, and maps.
What elaborate preparations! What is the use of all these
symbols; why not begin by showing him the real
thing…?”32 The first maps that Rousseau’s ideal pupil encounters are those he makes himself. However, it was
only in the following century, under the influence of
Jean Heinrich Pestalozzi and Friedrich Froebel, that it
became generally acceptable for cartography to be
learned by the heuristic method.33 Once this happened,
the school premises and their immediate vicinity would
clearly form a more practicable training-ground than
“the whole globe of the earth.”
These trends were eventually reflected by new definitions of the word “map.” Their intellectual pedigree is
captured, long before the end of the century, in Robert
Sullivan’s reference to “a rude representation of the
WHAT WAS A MAP? THE LEXICOGRAPHERS REPLY
schoolroom — as it would appear to a person looking
down from the ceiling — or, in other words, … a map of
the schoolroom.”34 Twenty-three “vertical” statements of
this kind have been collected from between 1874 and
1994. The most famous of their authors is Thomas Henry
Huxley: “If a person in a balloon passed at a great height
over any part of the earth’s surface, and sketched in outline what he saw directly below, his sketch on a flat surface like this page would be called a map.”35 By this time,
Huxley’s method had already been put into practice.36
And it was no doubt thanks to the further development
of aviation and particularly of air photography that such
definitions were to remain current until the present day,
at least in dictionaries and school textbooks. A recent example is “the representation of (part of) the earth’s surface as seen from above, showing the shape of countries,
the position of towns, the height of land, the rivers,
etc.”37 Verticality achieved its greatest intellectual prestige in Paul Harvey’s reference to “the visually impossible
feat of vertical representation at every point,” though this
may have been meant as a description rather than a definition.38
The balloonist’s or airman’s approach is best suited to
large-scale representations of small areas and therefore
stands at an opposite conceptual extreme to the “geographical” definitions reviewed in the previous section.
Its most obvious flaw is that no map thus defined can
show more than a hemisphere, a proviso that would surely have inspired horror and outrage in any seventeenthor eighteenth-century writer confronted with a vertical
definition. A less spectacular but still genuine difficulty is
that in the aeronaut’s field of vision only a very small area
immediately below the observer is actually “seen from
above” in the sense intended. Harvey’s remedy, a vertical
representation at every point, is possible only if the earth
itself can be considered flat, or if maps are equated with
globes. Another problem — the cartographic representation of immateriality — has already been noticed in considering the idea of the earth’s surface. Here it need only
be added that the prominence given to visual images in
vertical definitions shows how little impact thematic
maps have made upon the lexicographical community.
The Cartographer’s Map
In the mid twentieth century, map definitions began to
be influenced by two closely related trends. One was the
growing importance of geography — and later, cartography — in universities and other centres of higher education.39 The other was the development of map-making,
as distinct from surveying, into a self-conscious profession, authenticated by the establishment of training
courses, the foundation of supervisory bodies, the publication of journals, and the organization of conferences.
For the first time, the meaning of the term “cartography”
became a matter of practical importance outside the ambit of dictionary-making. These developments naturally
lent fresh interest to the word “map,” generating a new
5
kind of committee-led definition (Appendix).40 Professionalization could be expected to bring an element of
pragmatism into the defining process, with maps characterized as whatever a cartographer might be asked to produce in the course of a working day. 41 In the event,
however, the sympathy between practitioners and theorists has proved to be gratifyingly close.
Historically the most important achievement of academic cartography has been the isolation of physical, biological, or social patterns on maps addressed to a
specialist readership. This “thematic” motif can be traced
back at least as far as the seventeenth century, but it was
not until the 1920s and 1930s that it did much to change
the English-speaking cartographer’s view of the subject,
firstly through some noteworthy thematic atlases and later through a new generation of textbooks like those of
John Bygott in Britain42 and Erwin Raisz in the United
States.43 In due course, thematic maps were to assume a
higher intellectual profile than “general reference”
maps, but their direct influence on the process of definition has been limited. They certainly failed to displace
the idea of the terrestrial surface, though this familiar
lexicographical contrivance was now becoming the disembodied possessor of a plurality of “features,” from
which the thematic cartographer could make his selection, rather than an object in its own right. Other ways of
substituting plural for singular on the face of the earth
were “phenomena” (12: 1959–91),44 “relationships” (12:
1968–95), “distributions” (11: 1933–91),45 and “arrangements” (3: 1986–93), all likely to be characterized as “spatial” (34: 1949–95). The same effect of thematic
subdivision has been achieved by defining maps as essentially selective (12: 1955–94).
Few thematic maps can be interpreted as portraits of
the landscape, selective or otherwise. Indirectly, then,
thematic cartography must have encouraged a new interest in cartographic conventions, though another factor
here was probably a reactive backlash against the popularity of vertical viewpoints, as more writers remembered
that maps and photographs are texturally quite different
whatever their structural similarities. As a cartographer’s
expression, signes conventionnels made its French debut in
1802.46 The progress of its English equivalent seems not
yet to have been investigated historically, but “conventional references” appear in a cartographic context at
least as early as 182447 and devices such as rhumb lines
and graticules were immortalized as “conventional signs”
by Lewis Carroll’s Hunting of the Snark in 1876. Despite
these precedents, “conventional” (11: 1912–93) is less
common in definitions than might have been expected.
In its first sampled occurrence, a map was said “most
commonly [to represent] in a conventional manner a portion of the earth’s surface, somewhat as it would be seen
by an eye directly above it, but with additions which
render it a summary of observations made on the spot.”48
Most of the additions envisaged here are presumably
words, though it is in the guise of signs and symbols that
6
JOHN ANDREWS
conventionality more often appeared thereafter, belatedly re-emerging under its own colours when the Royal Society of London undertook to define a map in 1966
(Appendix). Approximately equivalent to “conventional” are “abstract” (9: 1949–92), “schematized” (2: 1990–
94) and various forms of “symbolic” (21: 1902–95). “Generalized” (5: 1959–92) and “simplified” (4: 1959–92) refer to only one aspect of conventionalism but serve the
same broad lexicographical purpose by disclaiming pictorial verisimilitude.
“Conventional” suits the features that distinguish a
map from an aerial view, but it is not without its own difficulties. Whether every map is entirely conventional is
too awkward a question to discuss here. But one can easily imagine a record of the earth’s surface that would be
both graphic and conventional without in any way resembling a map. The word “holistic” in a definition of 1989
(Appendix) may have been meant to exclude this kind of
non-cartographic alternative, but holism is too vague a
concept to do its job very efficiently.
Perhaps the strongest conceptual link between professional and academic cartography has been the so-called
“communication” model (15: 1967–92), first publicized
by A. Kolacny in 1969 and almost universally adopted in
the following decade.49 A map definition based on the
idea of transferring information had been suggested in
1967 by Janusz Golaski50 but it was not until the 1980s
that this notion began to make much lexicographical impact in cartographic literature, our second example being A. G. Hodgkiss’s “a form of graphic communication
designed to convey information about the environment.”51 Various arguments have been raised against this
theory, which now seems to be falling out of favour.52
One objection is that a map may be used in ways not intended by its author. Another, especially familiar to map
historians, is that it may not be used at all.
The Philosopher’s Map
Almost throughout its history the word “map” has been
used in a metaphorical sense by poets and other imaginative writers, and regular sub-uses eventually became established in technical and academic writing for various
classes of non-geographical phenomena. Some of these
were also metaphorical: a cognitive psychologist’s “mental map,” for instance, is no more truly cartographic than
the black sheep of a family is truly ovine.53 More realistically, “map” has been applied to diagrammatically pictorial representations of objects as diverse as electrical
circuits and other flow-line systems, the human brain,
and the genes of a chromosome. But it was philosophers
who took the generalization of the map concept as far as
it could go. The pioneer seems to have been C. S. Peirce
in 1903: “A map of the simplest kind represents all the
points of one surface by corresponding points of another
surface in such a manner as to preserve the continuity
unbroken, however great may be the distortion.”54 A further stage in the generalization process was for spatial di-
agrams to represent non-spatial referents, as in several
early textbooks of symbolic logic and related subjects.55
Finally both subject and map lost all their spatial associations: since the 1940s, “map” for mathematicians has
meant the kind of purely abstract relationship between
two variables that had been formerly known as a “function.” This usage is evidently related to the expressions
“map onto” and “map into” that became common forty
years later as a way of saying “establish a correspondence
with.” This change of usage can hardly be seen as a mark
of intellectual progress: it simply means that “map” is a
conveniently short word with the advantage of serving as
either a noun or a verb. In general, it seems not unlikely
that for non-mathematicians “map” will in due course
lose its present primary terrestrial signification and become more or less synonymous with the sadly unfashionable “diagram,” thus paralleling (or “mapping onto”) the
later history of the word “chart.”
By the late nineteenth century, extended senses of
“map” had begun to find their way into the dictionaries.
In the 1880s, for example, John Ogilvie followed an orthodox geographical entry with the “figurative” addendu m: “a distinct and precise representation of
anything.”56 In more recent dictionaries, such variations
are no longer described as figurative, but they have generally taken second place to the traditional signification.
Very few reference books have made a complete surrender to Peircian generalization. An unexpectedly precocious example is the definition in Odham’s British
Encyclopedia (London, 1933): “a representation of the
features of one surface on another.”57 Like all the other
definitions under review, this relates to “map” and not to
its polysyllabic alternatives, but recently there have been
signs that the word “cartography” is following the same
path.58
Perhaps surprisingly, these changes have been welcomed by a number of map specialists, and particularly
by historians and philosophers of cartography as opposed to practical cartographers and map users. Robinson and Petchenik were thinking about Peircian
definitions as early as 1976.59 A year later, Peter Lewis
committed himself to “Maps are scales for measuring the
property location,” which perhaps can qualify as our best
example of a “clever” definition — though with some
mental effort it might prove acceptable as well as clever
if “location” and “measurement” were suitably re-interpreted.60 In general, it now became common for the
earth’s surface to be replaced in definitions by “spatial
information,” and among more venturesome authors for
the graphic to go the same way as the terrestrial. Thus in
Michael Blakemore and Brian Harley’s “Concepts,” the
vehicle conveying spatial information became simply a
“formal system.”61 The non-graphic “formal” as applied
to representations of the earth was matched elsewhere
by “structured” (7: 1977–94) and “systematic” (6: 1970–
93). These rather indefinite terms may admittedly have
been intended by their users to denote the mathemati-
WHAT WAS A MAP? THE LEXICOGRAPHERS REPLY
cal properties of projection, scale, and orientation, or
the visual codes associated with cartographic symbolism,
or the rules governing the map-maker’s selection or
omission of detail. But, for all the reader knows, their
referents could be wholly non-graphic: as Harvey points
out, “formal system” allows a gazetteer to qualify as a
map.62
A strange feature of this new concern for generality
has been its extension to the motives of the map-maker,
as well as to his or her methods and subject matter. A
map, it now appears, may be made for any reason and in
furtherance of any purpose. Readers unversed in the literature of cartographic empowerment may wonder why
this fact or alleged fact should be dignified by the International Cartographic Association as a matter of definition (Appendix).63 Perhaps it is part of an attempt to
promote the socialization of cartography by denying that
maps can be made for their own sakes.
In summary, there seem to be several reasons for the
generalization of “map.” One is essentially trivial — the
belief among practising cartographers that computer
disks should be allowed to count as maps — a policy
adopted by several recent writers who have put “digital”
(5: 1989–92) or “virtual” on a par with “visual” and “tactile” in the characterization of cartographic media. This
may not be particularly logical but at least there is some
precedent for it: the disk becomes a map by a process of
metonymy, the same trope whereby pianists are asked if
they have brought their music. One wonders whether
this derivative secondary meaning should be treated as a
harmless colloquialism rather than as essential to a standard definition.
For map historians there are special advantages in
broadening the scope of cartography. By specifying a
range of authorial motivations they can signal their acceptance of the above-mentioned belief that many if not
all cartographers cherish some purpose (probably connected with the exercise of political or economic power)
other than that of making true statements about the
world. In the realm of map content the historian can
strike a blow against elitism by minimizing the differences between “western” and some “non-western” cartographies. Many of the latter, it is agreed, have been
unconcerned with numerical standards of accuracy.
Their products are best accommodated in map definitions that make no reference to scale lines, graticules,
grids, and compass indicators — or for that matter to
“structure,” “system,” and “formality.” In the same spirit,
cartographic status can now be made available to any society that produces certain kinds of diagram or picture:
all one need do is redefine the word “map.” Thus Harley
and Woodward, in seeking “to redescribe the history of
cartography in non-western countries,” have chosen to
define maps as “graphic representations that facilitate a
spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions,
processes or events in the human world.”64 A further rebuff to old-fashioned “objectivism” here is the transfer of
7
spatiality from the world itself to the observer’s understanding of the world. Traditionalists may find this hard
to swallow: a regression line can satisfy Harley and Woodward’s definition of a map by being understood spatially
(in a sense denied to our understanding of the diagonal
components in the letter “A,” for instance) but there
need be nothing spatial about the variables it relates.
On the highest plane of generality, some philosophically minded scholars appear to welcome redefinition
simply as an aid to thought. To widen the definition of
“map” is to emphasize the resemblances between maps
(as previously understood) and certain kinds of nonmap. Conversely, to narrow the definition, or to resist the
process of widening, is to emphasize the differences within the same set of referents. Since both similarities and
differences undeniably exist, neither of these operations
is self-evidently wrong. To the philosopher, with his predilection for general statements, widening must have
more appeal than narrowing: in the short term it seems
to bring more of the universe within his domain, an intellectually stimulating experience however insecure its logical foundation. In the even shorter term the issue is
more straightforward: on the one hand “maps” is easier
to write than “maps and diagrams,” on the other hand it
is uncomfortable to be accused of talking nonsense by
readers more accustomed to an older definition.
The Limits of Lexicography
The purpose of this paper has been to acknowledge the
lexicographical record as a window on the history of
maps, not to suggest a new definition or to endorse any
particular old one, or even to suggest that the search for
definitions is a desirable activity for the serious student.
Many famous treatises on cartography have left their subject matter undefined, apparently without incurring criticism on that account. We all know what “map” means
sufficiently well to make ourselves understood, and it is
unlikely that anyone has ever achieved this knowledge by
consulting a dictionary. This attitude was rationalized in
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous discussion of the word
“game.” Some words, he suggested, are simply unamenable to intensional definition, their various uses being
linked not by any single common property but rather by
a network of “family resemblances.” 65 A related argument is that degrees of “mappiness” form a continuum
on which the exact boundaries of the word “map” are arbitrary and uncertain. Alan MacEachren mentions two
such scalar progressions, one leading from realism to abstraction, the other from the cosmic scale to the subatomic.66 (Perhaps we could add a third, from vertical to
horizontal sight-lines.) Whether these arguments really
invalidate the idea of a dictionary-type definition may be
open to doubt. What we can safely assert by way of conclusion is that, as it happens, most definitions of “map”
have failed to match the realities of language use. In fact,
it is their sheer badness that makes them an interesting
historical source.
8
JOHN ANDREWS
Appendix
“COMMITTEE” DEFINITIONS
A representation on a plane surface, at an established
scale, of the physical features, (natural, artificial or both)
of a part or the whole of the earth’s surface, by the use of
signs and symbols, and with the method of orientation indicated. Also a similar representation of the heavenly
bodies.
— American Society of Civil Engineers, Definition of
Surveying, Mapping and Related Terms (New York, 1954), p.
7.
A representation of the earth’s surface or a part of it, its
physical and political features, etc., or of the heavens, delineated on a flat surface of paper or other material, each
point in the drawing corresponding to a geographical or
celestial position according to a definite scale or projection.
— L. D. Stamp, A Glossary of Geographical Terms Prepared
by a Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science (London, 1961).
A conventional representation, normally to scale and usually on a flat medium, of a selection of material or abstract
features on or in relation to the surface of the earth, or of
a heavenly body.
— Royal Society, Glossary of Technical Terms in Cartography (London, 1966), p. 25.
A graphic representation, usually on a plane surface and
at an established scale, of natural and artificial features
on the surface of a part or the whole of the earth or other
planetary body. The features are positioned as accurately
as possible, usually relative to a coordinate reference system. Also, a graphic representation of a part or the whole
of the celestial sphere.
— [U.S.] Department of Defense, Glossary of Mapping,
Charting and Geodetic Terms (2nd edition, n.p., 1969).
A symbolized image of geographic reality, representing
selected features or characteristics, resulting from the
creative efforts of cartographers, and designed for use
when spatial relationships are of special relevance.
— Quoted in Michael Wood, “Whither maps and map
design,” Bulletin of the Society of Cartographers 27 (1993), p.
8. This definition was adopted in 1996 by the general assembly of the International Cartographic Association
(ICA News 26 (Summer, 1996), p. 1) with the following
changes: for “efforts of cartographers” read “effort of its
author’s execution of choices”; for “special” read “primary.”
References
1
2
3
4
5
6
A representation normally to scale and on a flat medium
of a selection of material or abstract features on, or in relation to, the surface of the earth or of a celestial body.
— International Cartographic Association Commission II, Multilingual Dictionary of Technical Terms in Cartography (Wiesbaden, 1973), p. 7.
A holistic representation and intellectual abstraction of
geographic reality intended to be communicated for a
purpose or purposes, transforming relevant geographical
data into an end-product which is visual, digital or tactile.
— ICA Working Group on Cartographic Definitions,
1989, quoted in “Commentary,” Cartographic Journal 26
(l989), p. 115.
A representation or abstraction of geographical reality: a
tool for presenting geographical information in a way
that is visual, digital or tactile.
— D. R. F. Taylor, 1991, quoted by C. Board, Report of
Working Group on Cartographic Definitions 1991, ICA
Newsletter, in Cartographic Journal 29 (1992), p. 54.
7
8
A small number of English translations from other languages has been included (see especially Stanislaw Pietkiewicz,
“The evolution of the map definition during the last hundred years,” Actes du xie Congres International d’Histoire des Sciences, Varsovie-Cracovie, 1965/4 (Wroclaw, 1968), pp. 272–5)
but none of these translations is the work of the present author.
The full texts of the definitions are obtainable from the author at the Department of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, or on the World Wide Web at:
www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/essays
The word “recorded” here and throughout this paper refers
only to the author’s sample. This means that not more than
limited significance can be attached to the dates of so-called
first and last occurrence. Some of these dates are in any case
approximate.
The figure for planar representation may be supplemented
by another 18 definitions (1775 –1989) that specify paper as
the commonest cartographic medium.
It seems clear from the context that “projection” in these
cases does not carry the specialized mathematical meaning
familiar in modern cartography.
J. B. Harley, “Historical geography and the cartographic illusion,” Journal of Historical Geography 15 (1989), pp. 84–6; Deconstructing the map, Cartographica 26/2 (Spring, 1989), p.
4; Denis Wood with John Fels, The Power of Maps (London,
1993), p. 22. In this connection it may also be noted that the
words “scientific” and “objective” occur nowhere in the sample.
The term “lineal representation” was used in Mylius’s School
Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1819) and revived
in Chambers’ World Gazetteer and Geographical Dictionary
(Edinburgh and London, 1957). See also below, note 20.
Several recent cartographic theorists have implicitly shown
themselves dissatisfied with the concept of representation,
for instance John Pickles, “Text, hermeneutics and propaganda maps,” in Trevor J. Barnes and James S. Duncan, Writing Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of
Landscape (London and New York, 1992), pp. 193, 227; and
Barbara Belyea, “Images of power: Derrida/Foucault/Harley,” Cartographica 29/2 (Summer, 1992), pp. 1–9, especially
p. 8, n. 11. Such writers may be using “represent” in a narrow
pictorial sense; or they may just be concerned with what is
WHAT WAS A MAP? THE LEXICOGRAPHERS REPLY
important and interesting about maps rather than with questions of lexicography. At any rate, no one seems to have produced a definition that clearly excludes the idea of
representation.
9 An exception is James Hathway, The Story of Maps & MapMaking: How Man Has Charted his Changing World — From Ancient Times to the Space Age (New York, 1960), p. 47, where a geological section is expressly described as “a form of map.”
For a more important case see below, note 41.
10 J. S. Keates, Cartographic Design and Production (2nd ed., Harlow, 1989), p. 3. Italics here and elsewhere are mine.
11 G. E. Hutchings, Landscape Drawing (London, 1960), p. 79.
“Surfaces” have also been avoided by defining the map as a
representation of geographical reality, but unless accompanied by a definition of geography, this does no more than
evade the issue.
12 George Grove, Geography (London, 1877). Surprisingly,
Grove is the only author in our sample who mentions horizontality in the context of a cartographer’s subject matter.
13 P. C. Muehrcke, Map Use: Reading, Analysis and Interpretation
(Madison, 1978), p. 55, quoted by Michael Blakemore,
“Communicating information about cartographic communication,” Progress in Human Geography 5/2 (1981), p. 300. The
same idea is expressed slightly differently in the 1992 edition
of Map Use by Phillip C. Muehrcke and Juliana O. Muehrcke
(p. 87).
14 “Some thoughts concerning education,” first published
1693, reprinted in The Works of John Locke, ix (London, 1823),
pp. 172–3.
15 “The doctrine of the globes ought to precede the projection of the sphere and making of maps,” 25 May, 1694 (H. W.
Turnbull, ed., The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, iii (Cambridge, 1961), p. 357). Book titles of this period include
Joseph Moxon’s A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography, Or an Easy
and Speedy Way to Know the Use of Both the Globes Celestial and
Terrestrial (London, 1674) and John Harris’s Astronomical Dialogues Between a Gentleman and a Lady: Wherein the Doctrine of
the Sphere, Uses of the Globes, and the Elements of Astronomy and
Geography are Explained in a Pleasant, Easy and Familiar Way.
Neither of these works deals with maps.
16 Gregorii posthuma: or Certain Learned Tracts Written by John Gregorie, M.A. and Chaplain of Christ-Church Oxford (London,
1649), pp. 257, 285. Gregory’s main title is The Description and
Use of the Terrestrial Globe, but his book is unusual in having
two separately titled sections, one on globes, the other on
“The description and use of maps and charts universal and
particular.”
17 Gazophylacium (London, 1689). The Oxford English dictionary quotes no parallel uses of “schedule” in this sense.
18 J. K[ersey], A New English Dictionary (London, 1702).
19 Edward Phillips, The New World of Words (6th ed., London,
1706). It may also be noted that world-wide coverage had
been assumed a century earlier in John Davis’s definition of
a chart as “a special instrument in navigation, pretending the
cosmographical description of the terrestrial globe, by all
such lines, circles, courses and divisions as are required to
the most exquisite skill of navigation” (A. H. Markham, ed.,
9
The Voyages and Works of John Davis the Navigator (London,
1880), p. 285). Early dictionary definitions of “chart” are unhelpful in the present context: a typical seventeenth-century
example is “paper, parchment or written deed.” The word
“atlas” however was often thought to need a reference to the
whole earth, as in David Booth’s “a collection of maps of the
different parts of the world” (David Booth, An Analytical Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1835), p. 211).
20 An implicitly larger-scale reference occurs in John Ash’s
The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1775): “A description of a country by lines drawn on paper, a picture in which lands and seas are delineated
according to the rules of geography; the site or description
of an estate according to exact admeasurement.” This definition appeared soon after the beginning of a marked increase
in the output of English estate maps (A. S. Bendall, Maps,
Land and Society: A History, With A Carto-Bibliography of Cambridgeshire Estate Maps, circa 1600–1836 (Cambridge, 1992),
pp. 29–30), and reappeared in William Perry’s The Synonymous, Etymological and Pronouncing English Dictionary (London, 1805) and in John Walker’s A Critical Pronouncing
Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (London,
1838).
21 For an example from the 1870s, see Karl Pearson, The Life,
Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, ii (Cambridge, 1924), p.
22.
22 Arthur H. Robinson and Barbara Bartz Petchenik, The Nature of Maps: Essays Toward Understanding Maps and Mapping
(Chicago and London, 1976), p. 15. The word “globe” does
not appear in the index to this book.
23 John Green, The Construction of Maps and Globes (London,
1717), p. 6.
24 D. J. Warner, The Sky Explored: Celestial Cartography 1500–
1800 (New York and Amsterdam, 1979). Non-terrestrial planetary and lunar maps are not explicitly mentioned in the
sample until 1966 despite the mapping of the moon by Johannes Hevelius more than three hundred years earlier. See
Klaus Bartels, “Vom Mondgesicht zur Mondkarte,” Cartographica Helvetica 5 (1992), pp. 11–16.
25 Michael Blakemore and J. B. Harley did not make this point
in their reply to Paul Harvey’s criticism of their inclusion of
star charts in map history (B. V. Gutsell, ed., “Concepts in the
history of cartography,” Cartographica 19/1 (Spring, 1982),
pp. 68, 84); see also Harley’s review of R. A. Skelton and
P. D. A. Harvey, Local Maps and Plans from Medieval England in
The Map Collector 43 (1988), p. 51.
26 Nathan Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary
(London, 1721).
27 “A geographical picture on which lands and seas are delineated according to the latitude and longitude” (Samuel
Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (London,
1755)).
28 This is well exemplified in J. S. Keltie, “Geographical education,” Royal Geographical Society, Supplementary Papers, i (1886),
pt. 4, no. 1, pp. 439–594.
29 Charles Cotter, The Astronomical and Mathematical Foundations of Geography (London, 1966), p. 173. Several definitions
10
JOHN ANDREWS
(including that of the British Association: see Appendix)
treat scale and projection as alternatives. In such cases both
criteria have been included in the word-count.
30 See for example David Smith, Victorian Maps of the British
Isles (London, 1985).
31 Guy Messenger, The Ordnance Survey One-inch Map of England and Wales, third edition (large sheet series) (London, 1988).
32 Jean Jacques Rousseau (trans. Barbara Foxley), Emile (London, 1911), pp. 131–4.
33 F. H. Hayward, The Educational Ideas of Pestalozzi and Fröbel
(London, 1905), p. 44. For an example from the 1820s of the
educational use of classroom plans in England, see Michael
J. Wise, “An early 19th century experiment in the teaching of
geography,” Geography 33 (1948), p. 20.
34 Robert Sullivan, Geography Generalised (48th edition, Dublin, 1874), p. 8. This passage does not appear in the 38th edition of 1868; intervening editions have not been traced. To
judge from their contexts this extract and the next (below,
note 35) may reasonably be regarded as definitions, though
strictly speaking both authors might insist that other kinds of
unspecified object could also qualify as maps.
35 T. H. Huxley, Physiography: An Introduction to the Study of Nature (London, 1893; first ed. 1877), pp. 5–6.
36 A. Philip Muntz, “Union mapping in the American civil
war,” Imago Mundi 17 (1963), p. 93. In the same context see
Jan Harvey, “A short history of air survey,” Bulletin of the Society
of University Cartographers 6 (1972), pp. 32–5. An early example of the conceptual link between ballooning and cartography is Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The unparalleled adventure
of one Hans Pfaall” (1835), where the earth as seen by a
space-travelling balloonist is said to look like “a chart orthographically projected” (cited in Eileen Reeves, “Reading
maps,” Word and Image 9 (1993), pp. 61–2). A still earlier reference, to an actual attempt at this kind of mapping, is in the
Hibernian Journal, Dublin, 8 May, 1786.
37 Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture (Harlow,
1992).
38 P. D. A. Harvey, The History of Topographical Maps: Symbols,
Pictures and Surveys (London, 1980), pp. 172–3. Lexicographical considerations were probably not far from Harvey’s
mind, however: in the same year he emphasized the glaring
need among map historians for a definition (in the singular)
of the word “map” (Gutsell, “Concepts,” p. 68). The idea of
ubiquitous verticality is anticipated in W. G. V. Balchin (author and editor), Geography: An Outline for Intending Students
(London, 1970), pp. 29–30.
39 On cartography, see especially Robert B. McMaster, ed.,
“U.S. national report to ICA, 1991: history and development
of academic cartography,” Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 18/3 (July 1991); also Arthur H. Robinson,
“Geographical cartography then and now,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 69 (1979), pp. 97–102.
40 See especially Christopher Board, “Report of working
group on cartographic definitions,” Cartographica 29 (1992),
pp. 54–6.
41 For instance, “The term map is generic and includes geographic maps, plans, charts, sections, 3–D models, globes
and statistical diagrams” (S. Cassettari, A. Fagg and M. Visvalingam, “Cartography and geographical information systems,” Cartographic Journal 29 (1992), p. 51).
42 John Bygott, An Introduction to Mapwork and Practical Geography (London, 1934).
43 Erwin Raisz, General Cartography (New York, 1938).
44 The first two occurrences of “phenomena” in the sample
are from translations of non-English definitions (Pietkiewicz,
“The evolution of the map definition during the last hundred years,” pp. 273, 274).
45 “Distribution map” was widely adopted during the 1940s in
the sense later associated with “thematic map” (see W. V.
Lewis and W. G. V. Balchin, “The construction of distribution
maps,” Geography 30 (1945), pp. 86–92 and W.G.V. Balchin
and A. W. Richards, Practical and Experimental Geography (London, 1952), pp. 112–20), but this usage eventually dropped
out of sight.
46 Francois de Dainville, Le langage des géographes (Paris, 1964),
p. 58.
47 Report of the select committee on the survey and valuation of Ireland, British parliamentary papers, H. C. 1824 (445), viii, following p. 374. This report dealt with the work of the British
Ordnance Survey, but the term “convention” was not much
used by Ordnance Survey officers, perhaps because resort to
conventions was regarded in the department as an admission
of failure. See C. F. Close’s comment that “conventional signs
are undoubtedly an evil” in “The ideal topographical map,”
Geographical Journal 25 (1905), p. 636.
48 A. T. Summers and E. Stenhouse, A Class Book of Physical Geography (London, 1912), p. 3.
49 A. Kolacny “Cartographic information — a fundamental
concept and term in modern cartography,” Cartographic Journal 6 (1969), pp. 47–9; C. Koeman, “The principle of cartographic communication in cartography,” International
Yearbook of Cartography 11 (1971), p. 174; A. H. Robinson and
Barbara Petchenik, “The map as a communication system,”
Cartographic Journal 12 (1975), pp. 7–15. A good historical
survey of this subject is C. Board, “The development of concepts of cartographic communication with special reference
to the role of Professor Ratajski,” International Yearbook of Cartography 23 (1983), pp. 19–29. See also J. S. Keates, Understanding Maps (New York, 1982), ch. 9.
50 Janusz Golaski, “Definition of the map,” Third International Congress of Cartography, Amsterdam, 1967, Collection 59
(Skelton papers), Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archive,
Memorial University of Newfoundland, II/I/2 (3), typescript, pp. 4, 5. Golaski’s definition is in two parts: “A topographic transfer, relative to a given part of the earth surface,
is a set of signs informing about spatial relations (conditions)
occurring between objects or phenomena connected with
the said part of the earth surface. The map of a given part of
the earth surface is a topographic transmitter that informs
only and solely by means of a disposition on the plane of
signs designating objects or phenomena.”
51 A. G. Hodgkiss, Understanding Maps: A Systematic History of
their Use and Development (Folkestone, 1981).
52 Alan M. MacEachren, How Maps Work: Representation,
WHAT WAS A MAP? THE LEXICOGRAPHERS REPLY
Visualization and Design (New York, 1995), pp. 3–6.
53 E. C. Tolman, “Cognitive maps in rats and men,” Psychological Review 55 (1948), pp. 189–208. For the later history of
mental-map studies see Naomi Eilan, Rosaleen McCarthy
and Bill Brewer, eds, Spatial Representation: Problems in Philosophy and Psychology (Oxford, 1993), especially chapters 3
(John O’Keefe) and 4 (John Campbell).
54 Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, Collected Papers of
Charles Sanders Peirce, iv (Cambridge, Mass., 1933), p. 400.
Peirce was a cartographer as well as a philosopher: he invented the quincuncial projection (John P. Snyder, Flattening the
Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections (Chicago, 1993),
pp. 136–37).
55 Diagrams showing logical relationships can be traced to
the eighteenth century. Their similarity to maps was sometimes noted obliquely, for instance by John Venn (Symbolic
Logic (London, 1881), pp. 121, 437) and Lewis Carroll (W. A.
Bartley III, ed., Lewis Carroll’s Symbolic Logic (Hassocks, 1977),
p. 244), but the first writer known to have actually called
them maps is Bertrand Russell (Introduction to Mathematical
Philosophy (London, 1919), p. 60).
56 John Ogilvie, The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language
(London etc., n.d., circa 1885). The word “atlas” has been
similarly generalized: William Turner’s An Atlas of Human
Anatomy and Physiology was published in Edinburgh as early as
1857.
57 A much earlier though less general example is “a delineation of some portion of a sphere, or of the earth, on a plane”
(J. E. Worcester, A Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language (Philadelphia, 1860)).
58 “Cartographical” was used in a purely analogical sense by
Nelson Godman in The Structure of Appearance (Indianapolis,
2nd ed., 1966), pp. 317–18, but the main vehicle for this lexicographical revolution has been a series of papers in and after 1994 by R. Paulston and M. Liebman, cited in Rolland G.
Paulston, ed., Social Cartography: Mapping Ways of Seeing Social
and Educational Change (New York and London, 1996). These
authors also favour the term “cartograph,” apparently as a
modern equivalent for “diagram” (Martin Liebman and Rolland G. Paulston, “Social cartography: a new methodology
for comparative studies,” Compare, a Journal of Comparative Education 24/3 (1994), p. 233 ff.).
59 Robinson and Petchenik, Nature of Maps, p. 16.
60 Peter Lewis, Maps and Statistics (London, 1977), p. 3.
61 Michael Blakemore and J. B. Harley, “Concepts in the history of cartography: a review and perspective,” Cartographica
17/4 (Winter, 1980), p. 13; Michael Blakemore and J. B. Harley, “The authors reply” in Gutsell, “Concepts,” pp. 82–3.
62 P. D. A. Harvey in Gutsell, “Concepts,” p. 68.
63 An earlier “purposive” definition is: “any graphic, conventional representation of spatial information, drawn for a purpose” (Patrick Bailey, “The map in schools: a key, a language
and a set of skills,” Cartographic Journal 21 (1984), p. 62).
64 J. B. Harley and David Woodward, The History of Cartography,
I: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and
11
the Mediterranean (Chicago and London, 1987), p. xvi; ii (pt
1): Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies (Chicago and London, 1992), p. xxii.
65 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford,
1968, first published 1953), pp. 31–5. No one seems to have
suggested that Wittgenstein gave up rather too easily in his
search for a definition of “game.” See, however, Hans-Johann
Glock, A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford, 1996), pp. 121–2.
66 MacEachren, How Maps Work, pp. 160–61. Also Jean Atkinson, Words in the Mind: An Introduction to The Mental Lexicon
(Oxford, 2nd ed., 1994), pp. 51–63.
Résumé On discute souvent des définitions du mot “carte”
dans un esprit philosophique, mais jusqu’à maintenant, on n’en
a jamais discuté pour jeter de la lumière sur l’histoire de la cartographie. Dans cette recherche, on a recueilli un échantillon
de plus de trois cents définitions dans des dictionnaires, des encyclopédies, des textes sur la géographie et d'autres écrits datant
de la moitié du dix-septième siècle jusqu’à aujourd'hui. Les résultats justifient que l'on en fasse une analyse historique et statistique et l’on offre à notre réflexion plusieurs exemples de
telles analyses. L'approche lexicographique la plus commune
vise à traiter les cartes comme des représentations de la surface
de la terre, mais pour plusieurs auteurs cette formule simple a
été trop générale et trop brute. Parmi les autres définitions, peu
semblent se conformer à l'usage commun. Elles reflètent plutôt
des changements de modes intellectuelles chez les géographes
et, plus récemment, chez les cartographes. Dans les cas où l’on
a essayé d’atteindre un plus grand raffinement lexicographique, on peut voir émerger certains motifs. Pour les fins de la discussion ces motifs seront, dans l’ordre historique : scientifiques,
populaires, professionnels et philosophiques.
Zusammenfassung Was war eine Karte? Die Antwort der
Lexikographen Definitionen des Wortes ‘map’ (Karte) werden oft in einem philosophischen Geist diskutiert, aber sie sind
bisher nicht dazu herangezogen worden, die Geschichte der
Kartographie zu erhellen. Dieser Studie liegt eine Stichprobe
von mehr als dreihundert solcher Definitionen zugrunde. Als
Quellen dienten Wörterbücher, Reallexika, geographische
Lehrbücher und andere Schriften, die zwischen der Mitte des
siebzehnten Jahrhunderts und der Gegenwart erschienen sind.
Die Ergebnisse verdienen offensichtlich eine statistische und historische Analyse, und mehrere Beispiele einer solchen Analyse
werden vorgelegt. Im häufigsten Fall wurden Karten als Darstellungen der Erdoberfläche definiert, aber viele Autoren haben
diese einfache Formel als zu allgemein und zu grob angesehen.
Von den alternativen Definitionen erscheinen wenige mit dem
gewöhnlichen Sprachgebrauch vereinbar. Sie reflektieren vielmehr wechselnde intellektuelle Moden unter Geographen und,
in jüngerer Zeit, unter Kartographen. In diesen Fällen, wo eine
verfeinerte lexikographische Behandlung versucht wird, kann
man eine Anzahl von Leitgedanken entdecken. Einige davon
werden diskutiert; diese sind, in historischer Reihenfolge, wissenschaftlich, volkstümlich, berufsbezogen und philosophisch.